The nature-nurture debate

• What is the nature-nurture debate?

  Concerned to the extent to which behaviour is caused by inherited factors or acquired characteristics from the environment
• What is heredity?

  Genetic transmission of psychological and physical characteristics from one generation to the next
• What is the environment?

  Any non-genetic influence

  e.g

  Prenatal influences in the womb

  Cultural factors- society
• What is the interactionist perspective to nature-nurture?

  Contribution of nature and nurture and how they interact

  How environmental factors affect the expression of genes
• What is the nature side?

  Inherited influences

  Heredity

  Genetic factors

  Behaviour is innate
• What is the nurture side of the debate?

  Influence of experience and the environment

  Lerener identified different environmental factors such as prenatal (smoking)

  Psychological
• Evidence of the nature side of the debate

  Nestadt OCD twin studies

  68% MZ shared OCD

  31% DZ

  Fight/flight response

  Gender- chromosomes XX or XY
• Examples of nurture

  Watson and Rayner

  Phobia acquired through classical conditioning

  Little Albert not afraid of white rat until it was paired with a loud noise

  Babies attach due to food

  2 process model of phobias
• Evaluation of the nature-nurture debate

  Nativists suggest anatomy is destiny

  That genetic make-up determines our characteristics and behaviour

  Extreme determinist leads to controversy such as altering the gene pool to the ideal

  However the empirical view and suggesting any behaviour can be altered by changing environmental conditions can lead to behaviour shaping and undesirable behaviours being punished and lead to complete social control

  Both positions taken to extremes can have negative consequences for society so an interactionist perspective is preferred.
• Evaluation of the nature-nurture debate

  A strength of the research into the nature-nurture debate is the use of adoption studies

  If adopted children are more similar to their adopted parent the environment would have a greater influence

  If they are more similar to biological parent there is a greater genetic influence

  However the research suggests nature and nurture can be pulled apart

  Plomin suggests that people create their own nurture by actively choosing environments appropriate to their nature
• The interactionist perspective to nature-nurture

  Biological vulnerability

  Being born with a gene predisposes you to a disorder

  Only develop if there is an environmental stressor

  Supports interactionism by being raised in a dysfunctional family or having criminal role models influences the expression of genes (nature) and their behaviour
• The interactionist perspective to nature-nurture

  Epigenetics

  Change in genetic activity without actually changing the genes themselves

  Aspects of our lifestyle leave markers on our DNA which switch genes on or off

  Dutch Hunger Winter women who became pregnant during the famine had low weight babies who were 2x more likely to develop SZ

  Lifestyle affected the DNA passed onto children
• What is the interactionist perspective to nature-nurture?

  Neuroplasticity (Maguire)

  Brains ability to change and adapt it's structures and processes as a result of experience and new learning

  Brain can reorganise itself by forming new neural connections